Laparoscopic and endoscopic surgical procedures are conducted through a small incision in the skin or natural body orifices. In order to operate, surgeons must use instruments that have a small enough cross section to fit within these small openings and long enough to reach the surgical area within the body.
Surgical instruments designed for these procedures are often separated into two components to reduce costs and minimize cross contamination.
The first component is a long and narrow disposable portion that is inserted into the small opening during surgery. These disposable components contain surgical tools, such as surgical jaws or surgical clip appliers, dissectors or other instruments, on the end which enters the patient. These disposable components also contain small actuators which control the operation of the surgical tools within the patient.
These small actuators on the first component are operatively attached to the second component of these surgical instruments. The second component is a non-disposable control unit for moving the long disposable component within the patient and operating the actuators to control the surgical tools on the disposable component. The second component is often a handle with a trigger. A surgeon may control the movement and placement of the disposable component by holding the handle and operate the small actuators by squeezing the trigger. For instance, a surgeon may squeeze the trigger to place a surgical clip over a vessel.
By separating these two components, the risk of cross contamination between separate patients or separate tissues on the same patient is reduced. The non-disposable control unit does not enter the patient and the contaminated long and narrow component is simply disposed after each surgical procedure is completed. In addition, costs are saved since medical providers only need to replace the disposable component between surgical procedures.
However, one the problems with currently existing surgical instruments used in these procedures is the possible contamination of the non-disposable control unit. This non-disposable component may still contact patient fluids during surgeries and become contaminated. This may be especially problematic for handle and trigger assemblies. In order for a trigger to be squeezed and moveable, these assemblies have openings to their internal structures.
One solution to this problem is for medical providers to autoclave and sterilize each non-disposable component after each surgical procedure. However, the time needed to autoclave and sterilize these non-disposable handle and trigger assemblies is significantly high due to the need to sterilize the internal structures. This sterilization increases maintenance costs for medical providers. Current surgical clip appliers include many disposable handles since they cannot be sterilized effectively, even with hours in an autoclave.
According, the subject invention is a non-disposable hermetically-sealed handle assembly with a rotating trigger for use with disposable components, such as surgical clip appliers. The hermetic seal on the handle assembly prevents any patient fluids and other bioburden from entering the internal structures. This reduces the possibility of cross-contamination and the costs of sterilization.